Advocate on record

• The Supreme Court this week pulled up an Advocate-on-Record (AoR) for filing a frivolous case and dismissed the public interest litigation.
• The Court censured the lawyer that an AoR cannot merely be a “signing authority.”

About AoR

• Only an AoR can file cases before the Supreme Court.
• An AoR might engage other lawyers including senior counsels to argue before the Court but the AoR is essentially the link between the litigant and the highest court of the country.

• Simply put, AORs are a pool of elite Delhi-based lawyers whose legal practice is mostly before the SC.
  • They can appear before other courts too.
• The idea behind this practice is that a lawyer with special qualifications, picked by the Supreme Court itself, is equipped to appear for a litigant because it is a court of the last opportunity for the litigant.
• The Supreme Court Rules, 2013 prescribe eligibility criteria for an AoR.
  • The advocate must train with a court approved AoR for at least one year to take up the exam.
  • He/she must also have at least four years of practice before starting the training itself.
  • An advocate needs to score at least 60% i.e. a minimum of 240 marks out of 400 with at least 50% in each subject in a three-hour exam.
  • The subjects include Practice and Procedure, Drafting, Professional Ethics and Leading Cases.
  • An AoR must have an office in Delhi within a 16-kilometre radius of the SC.
  • Additionally, he/she is required to give an undertaking to employ, within one month of being registered as an AoR, a registered clerk.